Summary of Achievements (Kansas Aquatic Gap) p. 1
Achievements for Last Year (July 2001 - May 2002)
I. Organized a meeting of local stakeholders
We accomplished two primary objectives during this meeting: 1) Determined the potential uses
of Aquatic Gap in Kansas and 2) Determined the resources (e.g., data) available for the Aquatic
Gap project. The meeting included representatives from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The
Nature Conservancy, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, Kansas Department of Health
and Environment, Kansas Biological Survey, Ft. Hays State University, Emporia State
University, Pittsburg State University, and The University of Kansas Natural History Museum.
In addition, we have been in contact with the Kansas Water Office in regards to their potential
uses of Aquatic Gap in Kansas. Below is a brief list of the results from this meeting:
Potential Uses of Aquatic Gap in Kansas:
1) Identify priority watersheds – Important for numerous state and federal activities including:
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), reintroductions of threatened and endangered species,
land owner incentive programs, assessing critical habitat for threatened species, riparian
conservation, sportfishing stream lease program.
2) Evaluating system integrity - Important for assessment of water quality for the Clean Water
Act, defining areas for ecological research.
Resources Available:
1) University of Kansas, Natural History Museum (Ed Wiley) - Fish
2) Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks Stream Survey (Chris Mamoliti and Kristen
Mitchell) - Fish, mussel, invertebrates, and water quality
3) Kansas Department of Health and Environment (Bob Angelo) - Water quality,
macroinvertebrates, mussels, contaminants, groundwater, and wetland inventories
4) Forh Hays University, Museum of Natural History (Bill Stark and Mark Eberle) - Fish and
mussel
5) Kansas Biological Survey Natural Heritage Inventory (Jennifer Delisle) - Georeferenced data
for rare and endangered species (487 locations for mussels and 689 locations for fish).
6) Emporia State University (Dave Edds) - Fish and mussel
7) Wichita State University - Fish and mussel
8) Pittsburgh State University (Joe Arruda) - Fish, mussel, and macroinvertebrate
9) Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks Harvest and Creel Data (Tom Mosher) - Fish
10) EPA non-point source surveys 1980s – 1990s - Fish and Macroinvertebrates
II. Hosted regional coordination meeting for Aquatic Gap in Lower Missouri River Basin
A coordination meeting for states in the Lower Missouri River basin was held at Konza Prairie
Biological Station on 4 December 2001. Representatives from South Dakota, Missouri,
Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas were present.
III. Modification of the National Hydrology Database (NHD)
Summary of Achievements (Kansas Aquatic Gap) p. 2
We met with USGS personnel in Missouri (MoRAP) to learn standardized techniques to format
NHDs so they can be assigned valley segment identification numbers and various segment
characteristics (e.g., slope, stream order). We have also developed several ArcInfo programs
(amls) to facilitate the processing of NHDs (i.e., removing dangling stream segments and
removing loops). The code for these programs will be available on our web page this summer.
To date, we have processed 70 of the 96 NHD in Kansas. This will be completed by the end of
May 2002.
IV. Begun compiling freshwater muscle data
Data from over 200 collection sites in Kansas have been and georeferrenced and we are in the
process of attaining more data on unionid muscle distributions. Those data will be linked to
stream valley segments as soon at the NHD is processed and segments are assigned identification
numbers.
V. Miscellaneous Accomplishments
Data compiled for the project along with cooperation with state agencies has resulted in one
peer-reviewed publication to date:
Keith B. Gido, Christopher S. Guy, Timothy R. Strakosh, Randal J. Bernot, Kristen,
Hase, and Mark Shaw. In press. Long-term changes in the fish assemblage of the Big
Blue River basin 40 years after the construction of Tuttle Creek Reservoir. Kansas
Academy of Science Transactions.
Kansas Department of Parks and Wildlife has also purchased a server for the Fort Hayes
Museum of Natural History in order to facilitate access to their collection records. This purchase
was directly in response to our need for those data.
Objectives for next year
I. Build relational database of fish and mussel data with valley segments.
The majority of our time will be spent linking species distributional records to valley segments in
preparation for modeling of species distributions.
II. Create and update web page
By the Fall 2002, we should have a web page online and will continually update this page with
new findings and data from the Kansas Aquatic Gap Program.